Living with a roommate can be challenging! Every college student experienced living with a stranger at least once during their time there. We occasionally irritate one another since adjusting to a new life away from home is not always simple. We have found these tips that you can follow that will lead to healthy relationships that can blossom into lifelong friends or just a liveable environment! Here are the top 10 tips for living with a roommate.
1. Get to know your roommate
When living with a roommate, communication is essential. Have a conversation with your roommate, get to know their likes and dislikes, and share emergency information. Inform your roommate of anything they should be aware of about you. When living with a roommate, communication is crucial whenever a problem may occur. Before it escalates into a bigger argument, let them know if something is bothering you. Nothing will get done if you hide information from one another or act passive-aggressively.
2. Set rules
When living with a roommate, establishing rules that spell out expectations and obligations will prevent conflicts before they arise. Dish duty, room cleaning duties, and receiving parcels are a few things to consider. Every resident's personal limits should be made clear from the start, in addition, to share responsibilities. A tip for living with a roommate is communicating your demands, which is crucial if you're uncomfortable sharing items like pots and pans. Arguments are less likely to happen when you set rules.
3. Coordinate schedules
In an ideal world, roommates' schedules are compatible. When one roommate departed for work, the other would be getting ready for the day and would have the shower to themselves. Unfortunately, timetable conflicts between roommates are common. This creates scenarios where one roommate can be stuck if they need to wash their hands fast or exit a garage spot that has been blocked. A tip for living with a roommate is to print a calendar for each roommate's designated use of these communal areas. It's simple to settle into a routine that suits everyone, but you must be prepared to compromise.
4. Pay your bills
While discussing financial responsibilities when living with a roommate may not be the most enjoyable activity, ensuring everyone contributes to the shared expenses is crucial. A tip for living with a roommate is prioritising delivering their money to the tenant as soon as a bill is received. Thanks to technology, excuses are no longer necessary because it's easy to send money utilising services like PayPal or Venmo. Your housemates will appreciate your thoughtfulness in keeping track of these obligations if you set a phone reminder once a month to pay your bills. Put a calendar in a common area and mark each month's due date and the total each person must pay.
5. Wear headphones
A very common tip for living with a roommate is even if your roommate shares your music, television, and movie preferences, it doesn't imply they will always want to listen to what you have playing. In addition, high-quality headphones are far less expensive than high-quality speakers, so just invest in a pair of headphones and use them whenever you watch a movie or listen to music.
6. Spend time together
No matter how different you are from your roommates, spending quality time with them might help you discover and possibly appreciate their personality. It doesn’t mean you have to plan a trip together or become close friends, but you should at least try to be interested in one another's lives. Finding common ground is fun, and dividing chores around the house will be simpler when you're having fun.
7. Give them space
With roommates, personal space can become a significant problem. No matter how well you get along, people need space, and it's good to unwind by yourself. Sharing a space when living with a roommate can make adjusting to a less roomy living situation even more difficult. A tip for living with a roommate is to set healthy boundaries and give them some alone time in the room once or twice a week; ideally, they will reciprocate.
Feeling blue? Check out our blog on how to beat loneliness when living abroad.
8. Be considerate
Living with a roommate will be more enjoyable if you set a good example for them in your shared home. Like, wash the dishes every night and ask your roommate, "You want to wash or dry them?" instead of keeping them dirty all week and grumbling to yourself about them. One tip for living with a roommate is to do a task together to reduce any tension that may be present. In conclusion, consider that you are sharing a space when living with a roommate and think about their sentiments before making decisions!
Follow these budget bedroom decor ideas and make yourself and your roommate a nice place to live.
9. Set healthy boundaries
Everyone has a unique set of personal restrictions when living with a roommate. Set healthy boundaries by examining your comfort level with distributing items like food, appliances, etc. A tip for living with a roommate is to keep your possessions localised and refrain from touching anyone else's property without permission. When you are struggling or feeling emotional, let them know maybe they can help you with it or give you space. The house is tranquil, and everyone is taken care of when we are considerate of one another's needs.
10. Share responsibilities
An essential component of living with a roommate is to share responsibilities. The tip for living with a roommate is to make a chore plan to assign weekly tasks like vacuuming or bringing out the garbage, but not everyone enjoys using chore charts. The most crucial thing is ensuring that you and your roommate put forth the effort to keep your area tidy and organised.
11. Address issues immediately
If you set boundaries, a cleaning schedule, and clear expectations, you can get everything right from the start. Still, there will always be disagreements. If that's the case, you should act immediately and sort out the issues. You can avoid a heated argument by calmly discussing problems instead of letting them brew. You're more inclined to be passively aggressive while the problems remain unresolved.
12. Create a roommate agreement
One tip for living with a roommate is to write a roommate agreement. This covered matters like when it was acceptable to invite big groups of people over, how frequently rooms would be cleaned and to share responsibilities, how often a significant other may spend the night, etc. The early agreement is preferable to assume that everyone is on the same page.
.jpg)
What to do if you and your roommate don’t get along?
It's a challenge to share an apartment with someone you've just met who definitely has a different lifestyle than you. Here are some things you can do if you and your roommate are having trouble getting along
1. Find ways to get some distance, spend your weekend at home or stay with a friend.
2. Talk to your roommate about any problems that bother you, and you can resolve them peacefully.
3. A smart first step when living in a dorm is to talk to your Resident Assistant (RA). They can give you resources and advice on how to deal with your particular situation.
4. Sit down with your roommate and draft a living agreement that outlines your expectations for living together. If you already have a roommate agreement, review it and make adjustments.
If you follow these tips, there is no doubt that you can build a healthy living environment in your accommodation. A tip for living with a roommate is to think when you get upset with your roommate over something they did and consider how it will appear a year from now. Daily life in shared student accommodation will be a lot more joyful if you try to concentrate on your housemates' positive qualities.
.jpg)
